After that of Éric Dupond-Moretti, the trial of another member of the government in office opens this Monday… Olivier Dussopt is called upon to explain suspicions of favoritism in a public contract awarded in 2009, which he disputes. The Minister of Labor is summoned to appear (until Thursday) before the Paris criminal court for communication of privileged information concerning a call for tenders, for the benefit of the water treatment group Saur, when he was a deputy and PS mayor of Annonay (Ardèche).
He is also suspected of having changed the evaluation criteria of this call for tenders, relating to a market worth 5.6 million euros, by reducing the importance given to the price in order to favor this company, holder of a public service delegation to manage the town’s water since 1994 but more expensive than competing companies.
Low value lithographs
The affair began with an article from Mediapart, in May 2020, revealing that a local manager of Saur had offered the Ardèche elected official two lithographs by the painter Gérard Garouste, in 2017, when a new contract was about to be concluded between Annonay and this company . The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) had opened a preliminary investigation for favoritism, but also corruption, illegal taking of interest, complicity and concealment of these crimes.
These last grievances were closed without follow-up: the lithographs turned out to be of low value – a few hundred euros –, the gift appeared to be an unsolicited initiative and Olivier Dussopt did not intervene in the contract award process. of 2017, said a judicial source. On the other hand, a search in August 2020 at the Ardèche home of the deputy mayor had made it possible to seize the minutes of an interview with the general director of Saur Olivier Brousse, in July 2009, discussing the amount of the contract and the criteria for the contract. call for tenders, and an email from the elected official sent three weeks later to his services, asking to change several of these criteria.
A survey “classified at 80%”, according to Dussopt
When the prospect of a trial was made public, in February 2023, the minister was at the forefront of the media scene, carrying pension reform, an emblematic and contested text of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne then renewed her confidence in him. Since the start of the school year, the minister, aged 45, has been discreet in the run-up to his trial, which he refuses to comment on with journalists.
Just on November 5, he repeated his line of defense on France 3, the same since February: “We are talking about an investigation which has been closed at 80%. Four points out of five have been classified, one remains, on a market from 2009, fourteen years ago. I am going to court to convince myself of my good faith. I convinced the prosecution on the first four points, I wish to convince them on the fifth.” Contacted by AFP, his lawyer said he did not wish to comment. He faces two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.